A Parody of Marriage Contracts
by Diresquirrel
Summary: Professor Sinistra has to explain a situation to the Deputy Headmistress. 'Tis a silly fic.


Space Mary and I were having a little discussion about HP fanfiction, (since our friends have been stuck on them and forced us to rewatch the series, and insisted on reading book passages out loud) and this trope came up. It's entirely unsupported by cannon, but embraced absurdly by fandom. So, here it is, my parody of the trope.

Not going to be an extended fic, but there might be a sequel some time. I'm not ignoring my other projects, but these things just keep popping into my head.

Thanks again, Greywizard. Once again you've saved the day. Even so, I don't own this.

* * *

"Uh," Aurora Sinistra said awkwardly as she walked into Minerva McGonagall's office.

"Yes, Aurora? What is it?"

"I seem to have a bit of a problem," the young professor said, head hung low as she slid into the seat across from the Deputy Headmistress.

"I'm sure it's nothing too drastic," the older woman said, leaning back in her chair, looking over her reading glasses.

"Oh, but it is," the Astronomy professor said with a worried whistle. "You see, I seem to have been semi-accidentally married to a first year student."

"WHAT? Are you mad? This goes against nine-tenths of the faculty morality code!"

"Yes," the younger woman said. "I'm well aware of that. But the issue is much worse than that."

"How could it be?" the Transfiguration professor demanded.

"He's Harry Potter."

"By Merlin's Bloody Beard! How did this happen?"

"Well," the younger professor said slowly. "You remember how happy people were after the war ended, right? Well, that happiness also involved large amounts of alcohol on the parts of my parents. They decided to engage their eleven year old daughter to the fifteen month old Boy-Who-Lived, but never told her anything about it until today. An owl delivered the acceptance letter this morning."

"I wasn't aware that Mr. Potter was that interested in having a wife just yet," Minerva said, her voice dropping the temperature in the room by at least twenty degrees.

"This, like many other things, we can blame on the Weasley Twins," Aurora said grimly. "Young Harry Potter asked his teammates what a nuptial contract agreement was."

"Oh dear blessed Maeve, what did those avatars of chaos do this time?"

"The twins told him it meant the person wanted to be his, quote, 'special friend,' and that they would be together forever," Aurora Sinistra explained.

"Something tells me that isn't the end of the problem."

"No, indeed it is not."

The astronomy professor took a sip off the offered firewhiskey from the bottle Minerva had just transfigured from the teapot that had been sitting on her desk and tried to pull her thoughts together to explain the next part. She sighed and decided to just jump into it.

"I asked Mr. Potter why he had agreed to the contract, and he said that he'd never had a friend before because his cousin would always beat up anybody who tried to even speak with him. He figured that if they were witches and wizards, his cousin wouldn't be able to beat them up."

"That makes sense...wait, did you say wizards?"

"Er...yes, not everyone who sent Mr. Potter a contract was female," Professor Sinistra said with a pained look as the magic booze burned down her throat.

"Do you mean to say..."

"Harry Potter said yes to every contract, thinking he would have more friends than he could possibly imagine before," Aurora said with a sad nod. "He didn't worry about them in any other way. He just wanted to have friends."

"How many?"

"As of this morning, he was married to 436 Witches and 45 wizards," Aurora replied, ignoring Minerva's spit-take of her own firewhiskey. "They range down from ninety-six to five years old at the youngest. Seven of them are great-grandparents, seventeen are grandparents. The Ministry luckily invalidated any that specified persons who are currently married, dead or incarcerated, but refuse to cancel any of the other contracts. They claim that we had ten years to cancel the contracts and that it was too late."

"Oh dear," Minerva said, taking another swig of magic booze straight from the bottle.

"It gets worse," Aurora continued, and Minerva McGonagall gawked at the younger woman like she had just said the impossible. "Harry thought it would be important to be friends with more people he knew, so he started handing out contracts of his own."

"If I faint, please take me to Poppy," Minerva begged.

"I assume you mean Mrs. Poppy Pomfrey-Potter?" Aurora Sinistra said with a sad smile.

"Please tell me you're joking."

"Not this time."

"How bad is it?"

"Harry is married or engaged to every first, second, third and fourth year girl - except for Pansy Parkinson, because he thinks she's a meanie. His words, not mine. He got engaged to a few of the boys in those years, as well as the entire Gryffindor Quidditch team," the astronomer replied. "Apparently, Ms. Granger was particularly ecstatic about the contract."

"Of that, I have no doubt," Minerva said with a tired smile.

"And the real reason I came in here, was... we need someone to oversee the Longbottom-Granger-Weasley-Weasley-Belle-Greengrass-Chang-Brown-Patil-Wood-Johnson-Spinet-Patil-Davis-Bones-Abbot-Potter wedding in the Great Hall this afternoon," Aurora explained. "I was originally going to ask Albus, as he _is_ the Chief Wizard, but he seems to have had a few too many lemon drops today."

Minerva McGonagall, Professor of Transfiguration, Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, fainted dead away.

"Minerva?"

"_Minerva_?"


End file.
